“So let me ask you” Zaheer said. “Have you heard anything about Zahraa from high school, I mean I know she’s friends with your sister or something right?”
“Ja. Miriam speaks about her now and again” Ahmed replied. “They hang out with each other too.”
Zaheer continued probing him: “So how is she, do you ever see her?”
“Not really man” answered Ahmed “its not like she hangs out at my house or anything. I just hear about her now and again but I’m not all that interested so I guess I never really listened. Why are you asking anyway?”
Zaheer was silent for a while before replying: “I was just wondering about her, haven’t heard about her for a while now.”
Zaheer and a few other guys were spending the afternoon with Ahmed. He was getting married in a few days time and had called the guys together for a ‘guys afternoon’. The other guys had disappeared for a while and Zaheer had taken the opportunity to question Ahmed about Zahraa. He thought that maybe, being Miriam’s brother, Ahmed would have some good information.
Suddenly realization dawned upon Ahmed. “Oh ja” he said to Zaheer. “I remember now, you two had something going on there for a while right? Whatever happened there, you never did say.”
Zaheer replied reluctantly: “It’s a long story and I wont bore you with the details.”
But Ahmed wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily and insisted that he tell him. “Come on man, he said; “If its too long and complicated, give me the shorter version.”
Zaheer thought about it for a while. “Well,” he began “The truth is that she was probably too good for me. Everything she was, I think I just didn’t measure up. She was a dream that never could come true. And in the end, to tell you the truth, she wanted more than I could give her.”
“What do you mean” insisted Ahmed. “What did she want?”
“I’m not sure” replied Zaheer. “You know how women are, they really difficult to figure out. We were chatting with each other and having a great time and then all of a sudden she ups and leaves and tells me that she can’t do it anymore because its wrong. Okay fine, I get that, I mean I know she was better than me in so many ways and probably holier than me too. I don’t hold that against her, I admired her for it.”
“So?” asked Ahmed, clearly very interested in the story.
“Well so I respected her wishes. Obviously if she didn’t want to talk to me because she thought she was doing something wrong, then obviously I had to do what she said right, I had no other choice. I asked her if we could just slow things down you know, not chat and stuff so much, but she said that that wouldn’t happen.”
“The thing is” Zaheer continued “after a while I kept on thinking about what she said and I thought about how marriage might be a solution. But seriously man, I wasn’t ready for marriage. I hated losing her, but I didn’t feel like I could marry her either.”
“So what are you thinking now?” asked Ahmed.
“Well now” replied Zaheer “I’m thinking that if I had a choice between marrying her or losing her forever, I’d probably choose marriage.
“What’s so wrong with marriage anyway?” asked Ahmed.
“Nothing” replied Zaheer. “Its just that at that time I didn’t even have a steady job. I couldn’t even think of marriage you know? I was still just a kid.
“So where to now?” asked Ahmed. “What do you think can happen now?”
“I don’t know” replied Zaheer. “I really don’t know, I haven’t spoken to her since all of that went down and I don’t even know what’s been happening with her.”
“Ok man, I’ll do you a favour and try to find out from Miriam what she’s been up to. I’ll let you know.”
Just then all the rest of the guys returned and Zaheer and Ahmed’s conversation suddenly ended. Determined to enjoy the day out with the guys, Zaheer pushed all the thought of Zahraa aside for the rest of the afternoon.
Later that night Zaheer’s phoned beeped with an incoming message from Ahmed.
Spoke to Miriam about your girl. Not good news. Will speak.
Zaheer’s face dropped. What could ‘not good news’ mean? He couldn’t contain his curiosity and quickly dialled Ahmed’s number.
“What do you mean?” he asked Ahmed. “What did you find out?”
“Well” replied Ahmed. “Conveniently enough the subject came up earlier when Miriam and I were talking about my wedding. She invited Zahraa you know, so I guess you’ll see her there. I don’t know if you’ll want to though. Miriam told me that Zahraa’s got some guy, some proposal or something like that. His name is something with an H or something, forgot now. She said that Zahraa really likes him and that she’ll probably end up marrying him too.”
Ahmed was silent for a while, Zaheer was too.
“Sorry man, I hate to break it to you like this, who knows right, maybe Miriam is exaggerating about it all. You know how girls are.”
“Yeah, thanks man,” Zaheer replied “I asked right, you did me a favour. I suppose I never did expect her to be waiting around for me right? She was too good for me anyway.”
He thanked Ahmed for taking the effort to find out, assured him that he was ok with it all and calmy changed the subject.
But okay Zaheer was not and, for the rest of the night, he lay slumped on his bed in his lonely dark room with his lonely sad thoughts.
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